SXSW 2008: DAY FIVE

Today was kind of lackluster; the crowd attendance dropped a day earlier than it usually does, due to the Music portion of the festival starting. I saw 4 screenings today.

First up, was Reel Shorts 3, a collection of 6 short films, mostly dramas. They were all surprisingly good, but by the end, 5 of the films were completely overshadowed by the uplifting spectacle of “Glory at Sea,” a 20 minute film that brought most of the audience to tears.

It’s a mythical take on Hurricane Katrina, in which the drowned dead are still spiritually alive at the bottom of the sea, while their surviving family members struggle to keep the spirits from being crushed by the devastation of the storm. In an effort to reconnect with their fallen family members, the survivors build a giant ship out of trash and items from their past, and launch out to sea where the journey ends in a bombastic gut retching finale. It was pretty moving.

Next up, we went to the Alamo Ritz to see “Yeast.” This film was actually quite inspiring in an unintentional way. My friend Boyd was so dissatisfied by it’s complete lack of visual look, likable characters, successful acting, and enjoyment, that he flat out told me that he’s making a movie this year to enter into the festival, because as he put it, if this shit can get in, I can get in.

For clarification purposes, the film is about 3 miserable women who are friends, but shouldn’t be, because they are all relentlessly bitchy towards each other in long repetitive, mostly improved sequences. That’s the whole movie from beginning to end, and while it may be realistic, as a viewing experience, it’s pure hell.

We then went to the Paramount to see “The Toe Tactic,” a very odd Comedy/Drama revolving around a group of people whose lives are unknowingly being directed by a group of animated dogs playing cards, all Greek Mythology-like, looking down from an omnipotent position and all.

The movie had a lot of weird casting decisions, at least as far as bit players are concerned, with Eugene Merman as a Elevator Man, John Sayles as an Apartment Manager, and David Cross & Eli Wallach as the 2 of the voices of the dogs. It was a colorful and sweet movie, but I’m not sure I would ever watch it again. It also had music by Yo La Tengo in it.

The last movie I saw of the night, and mostly likely the festival was “Nerdcore Rising,” a documentary about the growing Hip Hop subgenre, Nerdcore, that makes the logical fuse of Rap and Geek subject matter.

The movies really about the “inventor” of Nerdcore, MC Frontalot, and his band’s first nationwide tour. For being a movie about a subject I’m not too fond of, it wasn’t bad.

Okay, that’s it for movie, at least for me. I saw 23 movies in 5 days, not too shabby. It’s all music from here on out for me though.

--Popkoff